Top court restores raises for judges in Pennsylvania

Although lawmakers lost the increases they gave themselves, jurists have protection in law.

September 15, 2006|By John L. Micek Of The Morning Call

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court justices on Thursday reinstated 10 percent raises for 1,200 state and local judges -- including themselves -- but rejected mid-term increases for state lawmakers.

The 100-page opinion restores judicial pay to what it was late last year, before lawmakers repealed a pay-raise law in the face of sustained public outrage. The court's decision could rekindle the issue heading into the November elections.

The state Constitution protects judges from financial retribution or arm-twisting by other branches of government. The high court found that lawmakers erred by reducing judicial pay without also reducing the pay of all the state's "salaried officers."

Because the pay raise was not immediate for everyone, not everyone saw a salary cut when it was repealed. Technically, then, not everyone's pay was cut, the court ruled, so judicial salaries should not have been cut.

Justice Ronald D. Castille wrote the opinion, backed by Justices Max Baer, Cynthia A. Baldwin, J. Michael Eakin and Sandra Schultz Newman. Justice Thomas G. Saylor, who faces the voters next year, filed a separate opinion saying the raises for all three branches should have been declared unconstitutional.

Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy, who had spoken in favor of the pay raise law, did not participate in the case.

On a related matter, the court ruled the so-called "unvouchered expense" payments lawmakers used to claim their raises right away were unconstitutional because they did "not bear a reasonable relationship to the actual expenses incurred by individual legislators."

The Constitution prohibits lawmakers from raising their own salaries while in office. The Legislature boosted the salaries of future lawmakers, but then used the expenses system to claim the money sooner.

The ruling was significant because the court previously has upheld such early payments.

The court did not demand that lawmakers who took early payments return the money. In a footnote, Castille wrote that "any legislator who elected to receive unvouchered expense allowances acted in good-faith reliance on the presumption" of the raise's constitutionality.

Stephen C. MacNett, the top lawyer for Senate Republicans, expressed "deep disappointment" with the decision. "We believe the General Assembly acted appropriately and in the fairest way possible by repealing [the pay raise law] and thereby eliminating the pay raise across the board throughout all branches of state government," he said in a written statement.

The high court ruled Thursday on three lawsuits, two of which were filed by state trial judges challenging the judicial pay repeal.

Dauphin County political gadfly Gene Stilp, who filed the third lawsuit, represented himself in the case. On Thursday, he called the court's decision on the expense payments a victory, even as he lamented the reinstated judicial windfalls.

"If this helps people feel like they can fight their government," he said, "it's a good thing."

Stilp vowed retribution at the ballot boxes for the judicial raises, saying, "We'll do what we did in 2005," a reference to the historic ouster of former Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro.

Tim Potts, director of the voter activist group Democracy Rising, slammed the court for letting legislators keep voucher payments. "There was no "good faith' on the night of July 7," he said, referring to the footnote in Castille's ruling. "This court is a disgrace."

That clause could have political implications, said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. "A lot of challengers are going to say this makes it worse," he said. "It's not a club. [But] it's a little stick they can beat them with."

Nine of 50 state senators who accepted the raises have not repaid the money, and five are repaying over three years, according to a list obtained from the activist group Rock the Capital. Of the 131 state House members who accepted the raise, 71 have repaid it, while 60 refused to do so or donated it to charity.

Eric Epstein, the group's founder, characterized the ruling as a split decision.

"I don't know how you can say stealing is bad, and then allow people to keep the money they stole," he said, referring to the expense payments. "The way I was taught law, you're not allowed to profit from your ill-gotten gains."

The court's decision was so politically sensitive that the Pennsylvania Commission on Judicial Independence, a high court-sanctioned body formed in October 2005, released a statement explaining it.

"In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court did what it must do in every case, it weighed competing arguments on complex legal issues and, in a dispassionate and neutral manner, arrived at a comprehensive decision based on the law," the commission said.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann, who blamed Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell for the raise, said the high court decision "is exactly what's wrong with Harrisburg: The Supreme Court upholds its own pay raise."